The Swashbuckler's Guide to Becoming an Astronaut - Creative approach to job hunting

Friday, June 22nd, 2012 - The Swashbucklers Club

A new book titled 'The Swashbuckler's Guide to Becoming an Astronaut' promises to help aspiring creative talent get their foot into some of the coolest, but most notoriously closed doors in the world.

Finding a job is rarely easy, and even less so when you’re young, lacking experience and looking for a break in the highly competitive creative industries. But if the creator of a new book on the subject is to be believed, it’s not actually that complicated.

“Finding a job is actually incredibly simple,” says Sputnik, author of the imaginatively titled 'The Swashbuckler’s Guide to Becoming an Astronaut'. “Frustrating, yes. Time consuming sometimes, yes. Challenging and even soul destroying? Yes, it can be that too. But one thing it’s not is all that complicated,” he claims.

Now, along with some of the biggest, brightest, most creative minds in a number of creative fields, he’s created a book that is filled with advice on how to get that elusive break, explaining exactly how to go about landing that elusive job.

“It’s simply about asking as many people, as often as you can in the most interesting and creative way possible until someone says yes,” he says. Of course, talent also comes into it, but according to Sputnik and the various other industry experts he’s gathered along for this fun, advice-giving ride, it’s certainly not the only thing you need.

“Themes like persistence, making an effort and being a little bit different came out time and time again” Sputnik says. “It really was amazing how often these themes popped up. Whether we were talking to The Gruen Transfer’s Russel Howcroft in Sydney or Tim Piper, creator of the Dove ‘Real Beauty’ campaign, in New York, there were absolutely some similar themes we kept seeing.”

The book features advice from a number of high profile creative people including best selling author and ex-ad man Nigel Marsh as well as marketer and entrepreneur Seth Godin, also a best selling author.

Not only did Sputnik seek out and collect this advice, he went about putting it into a book that would appeal to even the most dis-interested job seeker. “We decided early on we wanted this book to be fun and easy to read. There’s no point writing a book no-one ends up reading. This is quick and hopefully even fun to read. Every page is a design in itself but the content is still there. You could literally open up to any page in the book and come away with a simple piece of advice that might just be the difference between getting a job or missing out to someone else.”

The highly stylised approach even resulted in the book becoming a finalist in the recent Australian Book Design Awards held at The Powerhouse Museum. While it didn’t go on to win, Sputnik says it was nice to see the book in good company up against some of the major publishers.

As for the title, Sputnik explained it was part of a much bigger and more ambitious project. “The Swashbuckler’s Club is all about finding things, places and experiences around the world, that we think will put smiles on people’s faces, maybe open their minds a tad and with a bit of luck, add a little bit of awesome to someone’s day. It’s early days yet, but we’re already working on the next few books. And yes, they have equally random titles.”

But for now, he’s on a mission to help as many people as he can to make their way in the creative industries. “I’ve been lucky enough to have some great supporters and mentors along the way so I definitely make an effort to help anyone who comes my way looking for advice. So rather than repeat myself a hundred times this seemed like a good way to share that wisdom with as many people as possible.”

With a background in advertising copywriting, Sputnik continues to work on commercials as well as developing content for everything from documentaries to games. He’s also an avid trail runner, having just completed the grueling North Face 100km trail race through the Blue Mountains. But somehow between making ads, creating books and doing all that running, he still manages to squeeze in various swashbuckling adventures which will no doubt find their way in to upcoming books.

The book is available from SwashbucklersClub.com

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Sputnik is Chief Swashbuckler at The Swashbucklers Club - a club dedicated to awesomifying people's lives.SputnikP: 0433903521W:www.SwashbucklersClub.com